


Love, Animal Style

by RZZMG



Series: Hermione x Draco stories [43]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Animal Transformation, F/M, Falling In Love, Ferret Draco Malfoy, Hogwarts Head Boys & Head Girls, Magical Artifacts, Misunderstandings, Otter Hermione Granger, Patronus, Romantic Comedy, secretly in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 19:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13577523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RZZMG/pseuds/RZZMG
Summary: When the newly appointed Head Boy, Draco Malfoy, purchases an ancient Meso-American talisman from Borgin & Burkes in Knockturn Alley with the intention of cheating and passing it off as his own creation to get an "O" on his upcoming Charms final exam, he makes the mistake of not exactly knowing what the magically imbued item can do. Unfortunately, Head Girl Hermione Granger and he soon discover the medallion's special talent for causing all sorts of trouble. Sometimes it takes an accident of epic proportions to bring two stubborn tempers together!





	Love, Animal Style

**Author's Note:**

> This was a FIC CHALLENGE presented by CAREYLAN. Her requirements were as follows:
> 
> 1\. Draco x Hermione.  
> 2\. One-shot humor and romance, no smut.  
> 3\. Must take place in Hogwarts when they are still students – I don't care what year.  
> 4\. Can be AU or follow the novels or movies – I don't have a preference.  
> 5\. Has to include Draco's ferret transformation somehow.  
> 6\. You have to use these words: shenanigan, patronus, bugged, coconut, fluffy, pickle.  
> 7\. No Harry, Ron, Ginny or Lavender allowed on screen, except to be mentioned in passing. Ron is dating Pansy.  
> 8\. Slytherins must be cool. Theodore Nott must play a vital role. Draco must be attempting to turn over a new leaf.  
> 9\. Want a shower or bathtub scene.  
> 10\. Happy ending.
> 
> TIMELINE: 1998 - Alternate Universe (events after novel #4 never happened; Cedric Diggory didn't die, Harry won the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Voldemort was not resurrected and there was no war). Years Five, Six and Seven were filled with regular teenage angst stuff for our cast, but nothing world-shaking, like in the canon novels.

* * *

* * *

 

 

_**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland** _

_**February 1st, 1998** _

Prior to the start of their first term, Hermione Granger had previously maintained the notion that Draco Malfoy was a devious, rotten, little ferret.

Well, now the proof was in the pudding.

Annoyed with her current…  _predicament_ … she stared imperiously down the length of her dark brown snout and twitched majestically long whiskers in annoyance at the white pelted weasel in front of her. Beady silvery eyes stared right back in hot anger, nostrils flared and fluffy ermine fur stood on end insolently.

Playing to type, Malfoy broke the stalemate first, chittering his furious anger at their odd situation, audaciously placing all culpability for it on her for grabbing at the cursed amulet he'd been holding just before their "accident." He yapped and squealed his displeasure, turning his small pink nose up at her in disgust when he was finished with his rant, standing his ground against her accusatory glare.

Clearly, the self-centered Slytherin refused to admit his part in the troublesome shenanigan which now saw them transfigured as two animals (he a domestic ferret, she an Eurasian otter), unable to convert back into their human selves or use magic of any kind. Hermione was floored by such effrontery. How  _dare_  he try to turn this on its head and blame her! What an unbelievable, irresponsible git!

Snarking back through a series of flaying snuffs, wuffs and barks, Hermione refused him any reprieve from her ire, telling him to stuff his noisy, crepuscular self where the sun didn't shine, since this was all his idiotic fault for purchasing such a dangerous and poorly-studied magical item from  _Borgin & Burkes_ to begin with! Her tirade lasted quite a bit longer than his and ended with a final below-the-belt shot with an insinuation that his overly-excitable scent glands were stinking up her nose. She even wrinkled her muzzle in faux distaste of the non-existent smell just to be malicious. She was  _quite_  put out with him at the moment.

Malfoy totally lost his cool then and launched himself at her, all sharp teeth and spitfire. Hermione met him half-way in much the same temper.

The two mustelids clashed, foreheads pressing together, their eyes locked in shared enmity. They snarled at each other.

Slowly, Hermione's larger body began easily pushing Ferret-Malfoy back.

His tiny claws scrapped across the stone floor as he stubbornly set his muscles in rigid defiance, refusing to give in even though she outweighed him by a good four or five kilograms and was longer than he by at least a dozen centimeters. For such a little fellow, her dorm roommate certainly knew no fear, she thought with some small amusement. She might have even respected Malfoy for his bold stance if he hadn't just growled out between his clenched teeth that she looked as ugly in this form as she did normally, even going so far as to insult the texture of her fur.

Sneering back, Hermione taunted Draco's mouse-like size, which comically made his pathetic little tail bristle in indignation. Instinctually, she knew that no member of the weasel family  _ever_  liked to be compared to a disgusting rodent.

Feeling inordinately pleased that she practically towered over the boy who had bullied and bugged her for years, Hermione playfully batted a sizable webbed paw at his legs, knocking his tiny feet out from under him with one swipe, causing him to crash to the dark grey stone floor. She winced with a twinge of guilt (just a wee one, though) when she heard his teeth clack together from the impact. 

Snapping in sudden, rabid fury, Malfoy launched himself at her, scrabbling to his feet in a flash and giving a sharp bite to her ear.

Hermione folded the vulnerable flap of skin tight to her skull, wrenching it out from between his sharp canines and bleated, flipping over onto her back to kick at him with her more powerful hind legs.

Landing a rather vicious boot to her opponent, Draco flew back and landed hard on his side. He yelped in pain and scrambled to regain his footing, taking a defensive posture now, gnashing his teeth in her direction.

Hermione regained her legs and squared off, trying to make her body appear bigger in the game that animals played to warn each other off. Human, she may be in the mind and soul, but at the moment, during a fight-or-flight situation, the beast's instincts took over. She half raised her larger, meatier tail to shield her side, ready to strike out with it, if necessary.

Let him try to come at her again - she'd whomp him one good!

A thick trickle of blood ran into her eyes just as she noticed Draco seriously favoring his right front paw, which he had landed on with the full force of his weight. The combined damage gave her significant pause.

Different day, similar game, she sorrowfully mused.

True, the current twist in the rules (their uncontrollable shapeshifting) had definitely been unexpected, but the end result would always be the same between her and Malfoy – he instigated trouble, she berated and cursed him for it, they got into a bad fit that lasted for one whole day, and then blew over the next. This was the first time they had come to physical blows, though, and it made her strangely sad, lumping guilt and misery in her throat. She'd thought that despite their bluster, she and Draco had actually started becoming something approaching friends lately.

She grumbled and growled out her wish for this to end, as it wasn't helping either of them, except to blow off steam. They needed to find a way to reverse their misfortune, she explained as she pled her case for cessation. Besides, she argued, they were both hurt and needed to lick their wounds, quite literally. Effectively, she called a truce, still as weary as he, and after a long minute to decide her sincerity, Malfoy seemed less inclined to strike, the previous ferocity between them already simmering away.

Retreating half a meter, keeping her sharp eyes on him, she began cleaning her injured ear, wincing as her paw lightly touched the torn skin and whimpering softly in pain.

When she'd finished, she looked up and noted that across the way, Malfoy was still watching her, refusing to move, one paw held limply off the floor, his liquid grey eyes fastened on her every move as if he suspected all this to be a ploy.

Talk about your serious trust issues!

After five months of sharing the same private space – a perk of being Head Girl and Boy was their own small joint dormitory away from the other Houses – she figured he'd at least fathomed some understanding that Hermione wasn't one to go back on her word. She  _had_ extended the temporary olive branch, after all, and it would be "dirty dog" to be the first to break the peace.

Sullenly, she watched him.

Truly, this whole mess was all Draco's fault. If he hadn't insisted on cheating at his final Charms project by purchasing an ancient animism cult talisman (which hailed from a long-extinct Meso-American indigenous tribe that little was known about) and then wanting to pass it off as his own spellcraft,  _and_  if he hadn't told her of such outrageous plans (especially in such an arrogantly boastful tone), then she would never have tried to wrest the cursed thing from his grasp so she could turn it in to the proper authorities to have it disposed of. That their combined touch set the thing off had been completely unexpected to him (the sincerely surprised look on his human visage before the light blinded her was proof enough that he hadn't intended for a spell to be cast), but that didn't negate the fact that he'd brought this nuisance on both of them by being so selfish and lazy from the start.

With a frustrated sigh, she noted that Draco's paw appeared very tender by the way he held it tightly to his small body. However, she couldn't tell if it was swollen with a break, fracture, or sprain because of the angle. Having acquainted herself with healing this last year as Madam Pomfrey's assistant up in the Hospital Wing, Hermione worried that with their lack of magic and inability to leave the common room, as the door only appeared when summoned by humans, it might be hours before someone came looking for them and was able to actually look at his injury for treatment. If his paw was broken or fractured, there could be serious problems with sepsis or floating bones.

Blessedly, her otter paws had the ability to grasp things, and with her human brain in control, she had the fortune of being able to probably work a splint for him, if necessary, out of a combination of their clothes, which lay where they had dropped to the floor in the instant of this transformation, and some of her pencils, which lay atop her desk across the room.

She chirped the request to take a look at his paw, offering her assistance.

Malfoy growled in warning, but it was mostly bluster; she could tell he was in pain.

Hesitantly padding closer, she sniffed his fear and aggression in the space between them, hoping he wouldn't turn on her the instant she touched him. Pain did funny things to people and animals alike, making them lash out, and Draco was infamous for his bad temper to start.

Using her otter's enhanced vision, and nudging very lightly against his sore limb (earning her a rumbling warning), she took in the injury as best as she was able, determining upon a cursory exam that it was probably just sprained. He needed to elevate it and get something cold on it right away to keep the swelling down, though. She relayed this to Draco, offering to get him what he needed, and scampered off to collect her shirt, which she dragged to his side and bunched up into a nest for him to lie on.

He actually grumbled a complaint that he had to actually touch her "germy trappings," to which she told him to shut it and lie down firmly or else she'd leave him to his aches.

It was no surprise that he did as she requested, as she knew Malfoy had a very low tolerance for physically smarting, the big baby.

Getting something cold to put on his injury took a bit longer and more ingenuity. Thank Merlin she'd left the door to their communal bathroom open earlier to clear out the steam from her shower, as it provided the perfect solution.

Hurrying across the room, she used the toilet as a step ladder to make her way up and over to the vanity, where the sinks and clean washcloths were located. Gripping one of the rags between her teeth, she dragged it to the faucet and turned on the tap for cold. When the fabric was soaked through with freezing water, she turned the tap back off, stepped on the cloth to ring some of the water out, then gripped it back in her teeth and charted a reverse course through the bathroom and out into the main area.

Malfoy was lying with his lids closed and his nose buried in the collar of her white uniform shirt, but snapped to attention and sat up as soon as he heard her approach. The moment of unguarded despondency that she caught in his eyes was masked immediately with cold disdain, and he began twittering in annoyance at her "filthy saliva" slopping all over the cloth she was attempting to place over his paw. Once the thing was in position, she turned her head and intentionally bumped the side of his face with her snout, berating him for being an ungrateful jerk.

At the touch, Ferret-Draco froze and there was real uneasiness reflected in his gaze and in his posture.

Hermione paid him no heed as she turned away to recheck the cloth, making sure it hadn't been dislodged by her bumping into him. From the corner of her peripheral vision, she caught a strange quivering of his whiskers as she moved in. However, by the time she stepped back, satisfied that he was going to be fine, and turned to ask if he wanted something to eat, Malfoy had his head laid back down, turning his face away from her entirely as if in dismissal.

Arrogant prat!

She'd just go hunting for her own food then and he could starve as far as she was concerned!

Scrounging through her book bag on top of one of the desks in the room—a feat which had required balance and skill to maneuver up the chair and a leap of faith across to the desk top—she located a Muggle cereal bar among her things. Shredding the wrapper, she started nibbling. Immediately, her otter-self recognized the food as not normal fare; it wasn't meat, which was the primary diet for the carnivorous body she was currently occupying. She hoped consuming such unorthodox food wouldn't unsettle her stomach. The last thing she needed was to get the runs in this body. With his enhanced nose, Malfoy would smell it, and how embarrassing would that be?

She finished off half the bar before she found herself too full to continue. Taking the remaining half in between her teeth, she leapt to the floor and waddled back towards the magically-lit fire. Thank goodness this thing had been started before the mishap, as the Heads dorm could become rather nippy at night. 

Making a nest of the remaining clothes right in front of the fire, Hermione settled herself down for the night, wrapping her body in tight and putting her tail over her nose.

Godric, she hoped her friends would notice when she didn't show up for dinner tonight. Maybe Harry would become curious as to whether Malfoy had murdered her yet, as he kept contending would happen, and he'd show up at the door to investigate? 

Her friend's hatred of Draco was their best hope for rescue.

With that thought, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, the day's emotional drama taking its toll on her small, easily exhausted body.


End file.
